Hope Community Services bags £1,150 from Tesco’s community grant scheme

HOPE is delighted to announce it has bagged £1,150 from Tesco’s Bags of Help community grant scheme.

Bags of Help is run in partnership with environmental charity Groundwork, and sees grants awarded to thousands of local community projects every year. Since launching in 2015, it’s provided more than £67 million to over 21,000 local community projects.

Millions of shoppers have voted in Tesco stores up and down the country and it can now be revealed that HOPE has been awarded £1,150

Work will now begin on bringing the project to life.

Hope Community Services is a homeless charity based in Worksop, Bassetlaw. Currently HOPE supports those who are homeless, and have no-where to go, or anyone to turn to. We run Nottinghamshire's only 24/7 direct access hostel. Our garden project will allow service users to engage in gardening related activities such as, weeding, mowing the lawn, strimming our heavily grown bushes, and planting seeds and flowers. Our garden space also needs a fresh makeover, to allow service users to maintain the garden to an acceptable standard. The funding will allow us to get garden furniture such as, benches and chairs, as well as garden equipment; cordless lawn mower (safer for the service users to use), hedge trimmer and also a strimmer.

This will better our community as, it will motivate our service users to become physically active, boosting their health and well-being. It also will mean that there will be less anti-social behavior on our streets, as the project will give service users something to invest their time and effort with.

Development Worker Emma from HOPE has said “We are really honoured to have been awarded this funding. Thank you to everyone who voted for us, it is really appreciated. Our service users can’t wait to start their project and bring life back to hostel gardens”

Voting ran in stores throughout November and December 2018 with customers choosing which local project they would like to get the top award using a token given to them at the checkout.

Tesco customers get the chance to vote for three different groups each time they shop. Every other month, when votes are collected, three groups in each of Tesco’s regions are awarded funding.

Alec Brown, Tesco’s Head of Community, said: “Bags of Help contributes funds to community projects up and down the country and we’ve been overwhelmed by the response from customers voting in their local stores. We’re looking forward to seeing more projects brought to life.”

Groundwork’s National Chief Executive, Graham Duxbury, said: “Bags of Help continues to enable local communities up and down Britain to improve the local spaces and places that matter to them. The diversity of projects that are being funded shows that local communities have a passion to create something great in their area. We are pleased to be able to be a part of the journey and provide support and encouragement to help local communities thrive.”

In addition, to mark Tesco’s 100th year, they have announced two special voting rounds, Tesco Bags of Help Centenary Grants, in summer and winter 2019 with larger grant amounts available over wider geographic regions. Please look online for more information on if they can support your group either through the normal Bags of Help vote or Tesco Bags of Help Centenary Grants.

Funding is available to community groups and charities looking to fund local projects that bring benefits to communities. Anyone can nominate a project and organisations can apply online. To find out more visit www.tesco.com/bagsofhelp.